


five times scott kind of thought about kissing tessa (and one time he did)

by Kindness



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-06 19:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14654574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kindness/pseuds/Kindness
Summary: He's never even thought about kissing Tessa, not really. Well. Until now.





	five times scott kind of thought about kissing tessa (and one time he did)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flutz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flutz/gifts).



> Heaps of love and congratulations to the best trash anchor in the world! Just a little something from me and S, to start your day off right. (Spoiler alert: you know exactly how this story ends.)
> 
> _#no one i'd rather be #helpless in the trash with_

**1) Ilderton, 1998**

"I have a girlfriend," he says, panicked, because if Colleen Kelly kisses him right now, he thinks he might as well die, or move to Spain or something.

It's the spring of grade five, and lately it feels like everyone is talking about dating everyone all the time, and Scott doesn't _want_ to date anyone (well, except maybe Olivia Martin, but she's dating Jake), but that didn't stop Colleen from chasing him across the playground, and it didn't stop her from cornering him under the tunnel slide, and it doesn't stop his friends from laughing so loud that he can hear them all the way from the tire swing.

"Oh," she says, surprised, and shrinks back. Scott breathes a sigh of relief. "Sorry. I thought you liked me."

Now he feels bad. "I do," he says, not entirely truthfully. "I mean, you're nice." He shrugs.

"I never knew you had a girlfriend," she says, eyeing him now with a whole different kind of interest. Suddenly he thinks, maybe he should have just let her kiss him. He's never told anybody at school about Tessa before. He doesn't really think about her much, when he's at school. It's not like – she's not a _real_ girlfriend, he's starting to realize. For starters, she's only in grade three.

But at least _she'd_ never chase him across the playground and try to kiss him.

"She's from camp," says Scott. "She lives in London." He watches Colleen digest this, hanging off the wooden leg of the slide tower.

Finally, she says, kind of shy, "What's kissing like?"

"Um." Scott hesitates.

"I mean... You guys have kissed, right? If she's your girlfriend."

No. He's never kissed anybody. Definitely not Tessa. He's never even _thought_ about kissing Tessa, not really. Well. Until now.

"It's okay," he says, finally, because that seems like a safe answer.

Later, warming up at the rink, he wonders if maybe he _should_ kiss Tessa. Not now. Not today, duh. But like, sometime. Maybe. Just to see what it's like.

"Scotty!" says Aunt Carol sharply, reaching out and snapping her fingers at him. "What are you doing? Eyes up; stop looking at your feet."

 

**2) Waterloo, 2002**

"Hey, you're going to look out for Tessa, okay?"

This is what his dad says, hugging him goodbye in the Strachans' front hall, the day after his fifteenth birthday. Tomorrow he and Tess have that tour thing at Bluevale, and Thursday, their official first day of school. His mom can't stop crying. God.

"It's okay, Mom," he says, embarrassed. "I'll be home on Friday."

"I know, I know," she says, wiping her eyes. "Okay – we love you." His dad nods, tries to hustle her away. She pauses at the door. " _Behave_ ," she says, fixing him with a look. He waits until they're gone to roll his eyes.

Everyone's been like this, all summer. _Be careful,_ and – _you call us every day,_ and – _look out for Tessa, look out for Tessa, look out for Tessa._ It's not like they've never been away from home before. They're _fine_. And he doesn't need anybody telling him to look out for Tessa. He was always going to.

In the end, though, it's Tessa who kind of looks out for him.

"Come on, you're just going to have to do it later," she says, when he wants to put off doing homework. And, "I know. Me too," scooting closer, when he confesses to missing his friends from home. Some mornings after practice she hugs him goodbye at their lockers, just quickly before they both run to second period. It takes him a couple of weeks to realize how much he likes this, that it makes the whole day feel easier somehow.

"Hey," he says, catching her arm and tugging her back, one time when it looks like she's going to just leave.

"Oh," she says, small and surprised, into his neck. When he lets her go, she says, "Bye," without quite looking at him, and hurries away, blushing.

It's mid-November before he finds out from Andrew that everyone at school thinks they're a couple.

"What? We're not," says Scott, mildly grossed out. He elbows Tessa, bent over next to him unlacing her skates. "Did you know people at school think we're a couple?"

She pauses for a second, then straightens up. "Yeah," she admits, wrinkling her nose. "Someone asked me." She looks faintly embarrassed but then, at the look on his face, kind of laughs. "I know," she says, in that warm quiet way she has. "That would be so weird, right?"

" _So_ weird," Scott agrees, fervently, and at the same time something about the way she's looking at him makes him _feel_ weird, too, like a teacher asked a question but he wasn't paying attention. He nudges her, tries to shake it. "Only on the ice, right?"

She gives him a smile – not a whole smile, more like a half smile – and he notices for the first time that she's not missing any teeth anymore. It's funny; he thinks it's so annoying when his mom is all, _you're growing up so fast!_ but sometimes he feels that way about Tess. One second it'll be like she's still a little kid, and then a minute later like...she's this whole other person, who he kind of doesn't know, who has secrets.

Like: he'd had his first real kiss by thirteen (though it wasn't a very good one). But he's pretty sure Tess hasn't had hers yet. Sometimes he just wonders – about that. Who it'll be. When it'll be. If she'll tell him when it happens.

He thinks probably not, and he's not sure why, but that kind of makes him sad.

 

**3) Canton, 2004**

"Tessa's like my younger sister," Scott says, more times than he can count, in their first season with Marina and Igor. He says it because it's true: they've known each other practically their whole lives. He loves her. He looks out for her. He lets her put on Avril Lavigne in the car (sometimes).

Also, he says it because this is the year he realizes: it may not be true at all.

Their compulsories begin and end with a kiss, this year, and Marina has them practicing off-ice _constantly_ , well into the competitive season, or at least that's how it feels to Scott. Every time she shakes her head and resets them, he wants to scream. They look. They come together in a passionate embrace. They break apart. WHATEVER. It's not like they've never done this before!

But Marina insists, and it's been less than six months they've been in Canton, but Scott already knows when he's not going to get away with shit. So he takes a breath and tries to find that elusive quiet place inside himself, and reaches for Tess again.

"Scott!" Marina barks immediately, which – it's very hard to keep a straight face when somebody's yelling at you in a Russian accent all the time. "She's a _woman_. You touch her like a _woman_. Feel her like a _woman_!"

_I've never touched "a woman." I'm seventeen. I don't know any "women,"_ Scott wants to retort, but he doesn't. He closes his eyes, blocking out the sight of Tess's faintly worried face, and tries to picture their favorite of the many, many rhumba and tango videos they watched together over the summer. _I love this,_ he remembers Tessa saying, reverent. _Look at the way he touches her._

He opens his eyes, and her face is serious. She's kicking his ass at the not-laughing game today, God; he's got to step it up. He puts a hand up, cups her cheek –

Tessa jumps, just slightly, and they both say, "Sorry," at the same time.

"No," says Marina, her voice cutting between them like an axe. "No 'sorry.'" And then, more gently, "Do it again. Scott."

He does. Tessa is so extremely still under his hand, it's like for a second they both stop breathing.

Afterward, she doesn't – won't quite look at him, which always makes him nervous. "I think we got it, don't you?" he says, elbowing her, to fill the silence after Marina sweeps out of the room. Even to his own ears, it sounds weird, too loud.

Not a coincidence, probably, that this is the year he has his first sex dream about her (and wakes up horrified). Not a coincidence, definitely, that this is the year he starts calling her "kiddo," to her extreme annoyance.

Anyway, he doesn't have a sister, but he's like 99.9% sure this is not what it's like.

 

**4) London, 2009**

"I have to go. Bryce is here," Jess says, and hangs up. So he's already in a pretty shitty mood when his mom sends him over to borrow the crockpot from Kate.

He doesn't want to see Tessa. Things are still so fucking weird between them. They're supposed to be "repairing their friendship" over the break, which, yeah right. It's been two weeks since they got back from Worlds, and they haven't seen each other once. He texted her a week and a half ago. She replied with a goddamn smiley face, and that was it.

They're supposed to start going to therapy next week, when they get back to Canton. They were going to start anyway, for the Olympics, but since her surgery it really feels like they _need_ it, which is terrifying. He just – every time he sees her outside of, you know, when they're literally skating, it feels like his chest is stuffed full of cotton. And he should say – something, anything. He should say a lot of things, probably. But it's like he doesn't even know how to talk to her anymore.

She's not talking to him either, for the record. Sometimes he thinks, maybe she feels like she can't talk to anybody about what she's going through, not even him, and that thought is so awful it seems to go through him, right through his stomach like a physical thing. And then other times he thinks... He thinks, _maybe she talks to Fedor,_ and then feels so fucking angry he can hardly see straight. (Tessa thinks he doesn't know she's still sleeping with him, but come on, it's so fucking obvious. Never mind that he cheated on her. Never mind that he's the world's biggest asshole – )

He pulls into the Virtues' driveway, puts the car in park, and just sits there. For a minute. Trying not to feel the way he feels. He knows, he knows: _you have to be there for her_ – which, when you think about it, is seriously the most fucking vague thing in the world. _Help her,_ Marina said once, and he doesn't even remember what it was about, but he remembers it constantly. How he went over there, and the look on Tessa's face, and all he could think was, _how._

"Hi, Scott," says Kate, when he finally makes it to the door, and immediately hugs him. "Come in."

"Oh, I was just – "

"I know, I know," she says. "But come in." And she's so like his mom in this way; he doesn't know how to get out of it. He comes in, and she shoos him into the kitchen, and then she vanishes. Gone upstairs to get Tessa, he supposes.

She's gone a _long_ time, so long that he gets up and starts wandering around, looking at stuff. The Virtues' house has changed since they were little, but not that much. On the fridge there's still a picture of them, aged eight and ten, at their first-ever competition.

"Hey," he hears behind him, and it's Tessa, not Kate. He turns around and –

"Jesus," he says, before he can stop himself.

"I know," she says, in that way she says things when she wants him to _calm down, Scott,_ but how can he calm down?! She's got bruising, a little, and – and she's changed her _face_.

(Her nose. She's changed her nose, he realizes, as she touches it, self-conscious.)

He opens his mouth to say something, but nope. He's got nothing. He closes it again.

Finally, Tessa says, sounding – annoyed? placating? defensive? – "I didn't want to tell you. I knew you'd say don't do it."

"Yeah, I would have! What was wrong with – " He stops. _Be there for her. Be there for her._

"I like it," she says, and there's steel there. "I wanted to do it. Nobody made me."

"Nobody – " He breaks off, confused. _Be there for her. Be there for her._ "Okay," he says, looking down at the kitchen floor, because it's easier to lie that way. "I'm, um. I'm happy for you."

It takes him most of the day to recover. He gives her an unbelievably awkward hug, brings the crockpot home, goes to the gym. Has lunch with the guys. Lies on his bed for basically the entire afternoon, feeling like something ran over him.

Then, in the evening, he drives back to London. "Can I – " he says, at the door, and Kate, unsmiling, stands back and lets him go upstairs. 

He finds Tessa lying on her bed, a book propped open on her chest. She gives him a wary look and, like, not really a smile. He wants to hold her and he also wants to run away, all the time, lately.

"I'm sorry," he says, coming not quite close enough to touch. "I was just – it doesn't matter. I'm sorry."

Tessa sits up, closes the book and puts it down next to her. After a minute, she says, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I was just..."

"I know." He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks at her, though it's – still kind of hard. Her face is different, but also (it'll always be, he realizes) the same. There's a long beat, and then she smiles at him, just a little, cautiously, like she's trying it out. Relief blooms in his chest, the most unexpected, acute, clarifying thing.

"Hey," he says, plopping down next to her at the foot of her bed. He looks out the window, and the sun is almost gone. "You know I loved it like it was." It's kind of a question, kind of not. She doesn't answer, either way. He thinks he can almost feel her breathing, though, behind him. Like it should be. "But I mean," he says, trying not to say the wrong thing, trying, trying – "it really doesn't matter. You're always... It really...really doesn't matter."

Tessa's cried _so_ little, in the last year. But when he turns around and looks at her, just to make sure she's okay, just to make sure she's still there – she's teary. Visibly teary. He reaches out to take her hand; she lets him. He leans over and kisses her on the cheek, carefully, so carefully.

 

**5) Vancouver, 2010**

"We're going to be Olympic champions," she says, right in his ear, as soon as the monitor isn't showing their faces anymore. He's never heard her sound so sure about anything.

It's true. 221.57. Marina and Igor are smiling on either side of them, as happy as he's ever seen these two crazy Russians. There are two teams left to skate, technically, but: 221.57, baby.

Still... "Don't jinx it," he says, and the look of surprise on Tessa's face is perfect. It's going to be the best goddamn day of their lives. He can feel it in his bones.

They wait. They're both laughing, shaking, by turns; he takes her hand and squeezes it, has to remind himself, like when they were little kids, not to squeeze too hard. It's like the dance itself was this brief moment of calm – the magic of Mahler – and he's right back to nervous now, nervous and elated, feeling like he might vibrate out of his skin. (They've done it. They've done it. They really, actually, fucking did it. It's going to happen. It's _happened_.)

Tessa's beaming, taking measured breaths next to him, and he looks over at her and just has this...moment. This I-can't-believe-it, our-whole-lives, huge and grateful moment. She's the best. She's the bravest – the strongest –

He loves her so fucking much.

"Scott," she says suddenly, and jumps up, yanking her hand out of his. His parents are there, and her mom, and Jordan, and everyone's crowding around – crying, laughing, hugging.

And then they all breathe, and wait some more. Scott wraps his arms around Tessa, the feeling of her the only thing that's real.

And then they're on the podium, finally – _gold medalists and Olympic champions_ – _representing Canada_ – and everything, all at once, is real. They sing at the top of their lungs. The whole arena sings at the top of their lungs. It's thunderous.

They do press all day and night, literally, except for a break for dinner with their families. In the back of the car on the way back, Tessa won't shut up. She's so excited. He's so happy. He snuck back out onto the ice earlier, kissed the rings, and couldn't stop thinking about – you know. Hard work, and pain, and how your dreams really can come true. He looks at her, going on and on about – something, pointing out the window, laughing, and for one second it's almost hard to remember how _bad_ it was. How close they came to just fucking this whole thing up. It feels like destiny, but it's not. It's a million zillion days of giving it everything they've got and hoping for the best. It's _her_. It's listening (which, oops, he's not doing a great job of right now). It's working super super hard to deserve each other.

_Don't forget,_ he tells himself. _Don't mess this up again._

 

**1) Hamilton, 2012**

Like all the dumbest things Scott's ever done, it happens on tour.

They're at some bar after the show, all of them, the whole place crowded and thumping with music. He's drunk, of course. (Afterward he thinks, maybe he should stop drinking when they're on tour, but then, what's even the point of being on tour?)

"I'll get us a round," says Tessa, and disappears and never comes back.

"Is she okay?" says Kaitlyn eventually, getting up on her knees to crane towards the bar.

"I'll go check on her," says Scott, because that's what he always says, does. Or she'll come checking on him. Lately it feels more like that second one.

He finds her at the bar, _waiting_ , which is ridiculous. Has she seen herself? He comes up behind her and gives her shoulders a squeeze. "Hey."

She glances back, just slightly, and rolls her eyes. " _Hi_ ," she says, that tone in her voice like she doesn't know whether to laugh or disapprove. He likes her in this blue sweater thingy she's been wearing recently.

"I like this blue sweater thingy," he says.

"Okay," she says, giving him a weird look. And then, "Thanks."

He'd like to blame the sweater. He'd like to blame the beer. He'd like to blame anything available for the fact that, twenty minutes later, in the _hallway to the bathroom_ , he kisses her.

For a second, he thinks she's maybe kissing him back. But he's wrong, must have hallucinated it, because a second later she's shoving, literally shoving, him away. "What are you doing?!" Her face is flushed, warm color in her cheeks like after a skate.

"I – oh _shit_ ," he says, the full impact of it getting him like a boulder to the head. He reaches for her, automatically, and she actually recoils. "I'm sorry!" he says, quickly. "I – "

"Why would you – " She's pressed herself against the wall now. A group of girls comes around the corner, chattering. Scott presses himself against the opposite wall to let them pass, both him and Tessa smiling, nodding. Even drunk, it's supremely awkward.

(For half a second, he imagines how awkward this would be sober, and is very grateful for being drunk. But then again, this probably would never have happened if he had been sober.)

The hallway empties. Tessa leans forward, still not quite peeling herself off the wall. As if he's going to attack her or something. Honestly. It was an accident! "Why would you do that?" she hisses, glancing down the hall to make sure no one else is coming.

Um. "It was an accident," he tells her – and regrets as soon as he hears himself, because, really?

"It was an _accident_?"

"I – it was – you were there..."

"I was _there_?! God, Scott." She throws up her hands and leaves him there, head spinning.

The next morning, he brings coffee, and she gives him this look, like she's still half disgusted but will definitely forgive him, and that's that.

They never speak of it again. He doesn't even think about it.

(Yeah, right. He thinks about it all the time.)

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea on Wednesday morning. Holy shit, was it hard to keep a trash secret from you for FIVE WHOLE DAYS, haha!!!! Many thanks to the Backup Trash Crew – Sonni, Keri, Katie, Aly – for detail brainstorming, last-minute enthusiasm & reassurance, and general subterfuge support! (Z, too. <3)


End file.
